High-performance liquid chromatographic determination of flumetsulam, a newly developed sulfonamide herbicide in soil

An analytical method is described for measuring residues of flumetsulam, [N-(2,6-difluorophenyl)-5-methyl[1,2,4]triazolo[1 ,5-a]pyrimidine-2-sulfonamide] in soil using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The soil is extracted with aqueous NaHCO3, and the extract solution acidified then passed through a C-18 solid-phase extraction (SPE) disc. The concentrated extract obtained is then cleaned up by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) on Bio-Beads SX-3 prior to analysis by reversed-phase HPLC with UV detection. A detection limit of 4 mu g/kg is obtained by this method which is suitable for routine residue decay trials.